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positivity

Self-motivation, when existent, is more powerful than any external motivational factor, yes. It’s no wonder that “self-motivational abilities” are often mentioned as a characteristic trait/habit of the majority of successful people.

Having said this, I also believe that all humans experience some degree of low motivation at some stages of their lives, as a result of continuous hardships, disappointments or “bad luck”, even when they’re putting in their utmost energy and positive hope in it. In such case, the power of external motivation comes in very handy or even necessary.

Sometimes that inspirational voice in ourselves dies out or is muted down though all kinds of factors and it does no harm in such case to call in the help of external motivators, whether professional or simply existent in our comfort zones; a good friend, a colleague or a family member.

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do

Motivation has become an industry of itself, with big names like Anthony Robbins inspiring millions around the world with what often sounds like common sense but nonetheless very powerful to hear repetitively. But also through world-famous platforms like TED Talks featuring people from all backgrounds and colours who share the most inspiring words that we need to hear in order to revive our desire to achieve, flourish or believe in ourselves once again.

Don’t you hear this too often: “He views the world with rose-tinted glasses”. What is this all about?

Who said that rose should always be the choice? What if I like beige as my metaphoric colour of life, that brings about the same feelings as rose does to the rest of humanity? I don’t always try to view the world with rose-tinted glasses or follow the metaphoric hype blindly, because frankly “rose” is not exactly my favourite colour, when it comes to viewing life as it is.

Life is not rose-tinted, and it does not become rose-tinted either when putting on rose-tinted spectacles. Life is colour-blind, colourful, “colourish”, multicoloured, colour-rich and colourless. Life can be a grey turbulent stormy day or a colourless quiet nap in sunny garden interrupted only by silent merriments of a shy breeze.

How many colours did you count in this imaginary scene?

Rose is only part of it. Green, blue, yellow, red, grey, black or white colours contribute inextricably to making the mix the more natural one, a more whole one. Seeing the world via only rose-tinted glasses or only grey-tinted glasses manipulates the colour of trees, rivers, doves, sands, skies, lips and fire. It corrupts the natural “glow of emotions” and the spontaneous flow of thoughts. It also “dehumanizes” the inimitable beauty of a natural skin-colour. Try it!

Try to add rose to any “colour” you know of people, you know the skin-colour of people, while wearing your rose-tinted glasses. What image would you really get now of that stunning sociable lady or that handsome funny man? I’d say an alien, an unearthly creature, to which my first spontaneous reaction would/should naturally be: estrangement and as a result of this, fear of strangers and strange.. things.

We are naturally made up to pick and observe all of these colours of life together or separate, for a reason, even when born colour-blind, I believe.

“Interruption”: People who are colour blind are believed to be generally less attentive to their appearance, by nature of the defect in their “life camera-lens”, with which they register the physical glow of things. They have little to great difficulty combining cloths of different or similar colours. As a result, they have difficulty being conventionally well-dressed or fashionable, even if they manage to be presentable. The interesting thing is that this is not a loss or a negative thing at all. You see, being less conditioned to their appearance makes them more attentive to the crucial, basic, non-superficial side of life with less care for what people think of them or view them (appearances). A dear person to me is like that, and it took me knowing this tiny piece of information to appreciate him more.

The later established relationships between colours & emotions are the result of psychology as a science (Colour Psychology). But like most social sciences, psychology is the explanation and writing down of what has always been done by humans. We behaved in a certain way, without knowing why we behaved in certain way and then came psychology to tell us that using theorization, experimentation and analysis. And we have learned to appreciate all of these colours, because we were able to observe them and make them part of what we have perceived as “whole”:, throughout our life, no matter long or short.

Do not choose one colour and cloud the clarity of your sight voluntarily. Negativity is only one colour of life, with black or grey as property psychology colours attributed to it. Well, I like them both, too; black AND grey. I like to put on these grey glasses once in a while, because I want to and I need to. They allow me to appreciate the natural colours of things and people I already have, seek appreciation and embrace contentment, whenever I take them off.

Did you know that transparent glasses are always better for… a clear sight?

Eye-glasses are never rose, grey, black or brown per definition. Actually, glass is naturally transparent, colours were only added afterwards to it when it became possible in terms of making or producing. Also, remember that eye-glasses only have a different colour when the intent of wearing them is non-medical (not intended for improving sight) but aimed at “masking” or covering something else in its natural form (devoid of artificial colour), mostly under the pretence of being fashionable, thereby manipulating a certain clarity that we can’t deal with at some point, like a too shiny sunlight in an otherwise beautiful sunny day (or a too grim private situation amidst a happy family occasion).

Why do people wear black glasses at funerals? What are they hiding? Their tears? Why? Could it be, because it is “fashionable” and more likeable to be happy all the time? What if you truly are not happy? To whom would you pay “allegiance”; to you true emotions or to what people want them to be?

“Transparent” is my all times and all places favourite colour, for it is the colour of clarity, honesty, neutrality and tolerance. It tolerates the existence of all other colours in unequivocal peace and harmony.

Are your colleagues at work, family members at home or friends at your club complaining all the time about all the elements of life that make up their miserable existence and that of others to you, and make your working day equally miserable?

Do you often start your day at work, trying to avoid the exchange of more than “Good morning” and “hi” with some people?

Do you often feel like a non-voluntary magnet for the negative emotions of others who claim to care about you and come to you for advice only?

Well, congratulations! Because that’s good news. Cheer up!

You attract negativity, good for you!

You see, “magnets” like you that attract negative energy are supposed to be overly positive; by laws of physics (physical attraction is something else, as you probably know from famous book and movie The Secret). We also know the old scientific truism that says “opposite poles seek each other”, don’t we?

Since you are a positive person, and for the sake of uplifting your spirit with a healthy dose of self-motivation today, allow yourself the positive freedom of stretching the positive applicability of these laws to positive human interaction and positive social communication with negative others. Be at ease! You are a positive person, that’s why negative people are attracted to you. Now, make this thought your favourite sleeping pillow.

You must be viewed as a very positive person (family member, colleague, friend, partner) with conspicuous receptiveness for the “nagging” of others. Or one could say that you are a pleasant, helpful, sociable and trustworthy person to the extent that others feel comfortable entrusting their daily discomforts with life, no matter trivial or silly, to your generous & patient listening ears. It all seems positive up and until now, right? Well, that’s good… positive is good. But not always!

The problem with being “carelessly positive”

The problem with being “naively positive” arises when the same “laws of physics” apply themselves to your situation, causing “saturation of negative energy” at the expense of your intrinsic or cumulated reserve of positive energy; when there are far more negative atoms (thoughts) roaming around in your mind than positive ones. How can you tell? Does such a thing even exist?

Well, you got me there! Frankly, I don’t know much about “applied physics” and I am not a psychologist either. I do read a lot about both disciplines and it all sounded like a too interesting metaphor to miss out on using here. It also lured me to convey some level of intellectualism derived from playing with vocabulary and connecting non-reconcilable (multidisciplinary) dots together. But I really think it does. Besides, I do know a thing or two about negativity, negative people and their influence on your “intrinsic arsenal of positive energy”, your IAPE!

PS: Again, there is no such thing as an “IAPE”, I’m afraid. I just like to invent acronyms as I go (AIG) in the hope that a big multinational insurance company, like AIG, would make me happy one day by paying me a six-digit amount of money in a failing trademark copyright lawsuit, after one of my self-invented acronyms goes viral on the internet and becomes “threatening” to their brand-image! 🙂 There is an interesting story behind this, however, and it has some relation to our topic at stake: negativity, positivity and laughing your ass off! You may be thrilled & enlightened if you read it too, here.

Now, back to the topic, at stake… negativity. Yes… I know something about negativity and negative people that I would like to share.

As an entrepreneur, I have had bad experiences with emotional insolvencies, low “positive energy flows” and motivation drainage with the total bankruptcy of my NRPE’s (Natural Reserves of Positive Energy), looming around the corner as a result. My exaggerated expenditure of positive energy at those who suck it up with no Return on Investment (ROI) whatsoever, except for the primitive non-profitable (not even neutral) bargain with the only thing they could trade in, which was negative energy. So, if you want to keep your Balance Sheet clean, you should be aware of what you give (in) and what you get in return and the effect of this simple transaction to the healthiness of “your organization” as an intelligent and healthy creature elevated from other creatures (like animals, plants and microbes) by having emotion and the ability of communication.

Emotionality is more powerful than rationality

As humans, we are governed and run by emotions more than we think. Actually and scientifically, even our rational thinking is only the result of having a tight and proper control on our mighty emotions (in the Amygdala) which form the basis for all of our rational thinking (in the Cortex). Channelling them correctly and allowing them to settle in and move out of the way of rational thought is the process that distinguishes rationality from emotionality in people. So, see to it that your “balance of emotions” is frequently positive, be wary of negative risks that creep silently into your positive balance and process-system and keep an eye to opportunities that contribute to providing you with a positive balance sheet at the end of the day, month or year. Be emotionally intelligent.

How to deal with constant griping?

Griping a is an annoying form of constant complaining, and doing it all the time is even more aggravating. It has a sleazy unnoticeable (be it unintentional) way of manipulating your mood, the way you look at thing and the way your perform your tasks. This is especially the case when you are oblivious to its effect on you, since all you want is to be of compassionate help to your negative colleague in need of a “positive injection”. This, still, is a good thing by the way. But people who “nag” too often, all the time & about any and everything are mostly people with an unvoiced, unattended to or undefined (chronic or behavioural) problem. They mostly have more time (or all of it!) devoted to complaints but not to solving the core of their problems.

I am always up for a solution-oriented empathic listening-session, but I have developed a defence-mechanism towards vicious circles, irrational outbursts & unfounded nagging, characterized by low tolerance, or if you like “conditional tolerance”. I will not be sucked into chronic problems of which I know nothing but the superficial displays and symptoms that are sometimes manipulated and untrue seeking my thoughtless approval, gesture-based compassion or biased teaming up against a non-participating (maybe even fictitious) third party who is to be blamed for all life misery. Being unauthentic, clarity-avoiding, irrational, dishonest and unfair to the issue at stake does not help the core of the problem along.

And since I’m a solution oriented person, I will not always be able to listen to those who seek only and nothing but “emotional validation” and never a solution. Those who constantly and tirelessly seek emotional validation from others just want to be sad, grumpy, angry, disappointed or defeated letting their unguided emotions free. They want to be listened to as such only until it becomes a life-time behavioural pattern. For those people who have such a legitimate human need (for, it is legitimate), there is a thing called “professional help”, or they can read a book about it.

The very definition of “professional help” contains a very important and positive element to its purpose, which is having a “healthy distance” or a self-distancing ability from entanglement and “self-ownership” of the problem through a well-trained attitude. Professional psychologist and therapist, beside being presumably & expectedly not involved in the problem themselves, are trained to be keen observers and “carefully absorbent” analysts of the problems of others without making it “their own” or becoming saturated with it like a sponge. When we are in our “regular people” or “involved people” status, we do not have such self-distancing abilities, even if we happen to be qualified psychologists or therapists. At least, not always, and here lies a hazard to our well-being.

Negative energy is contagious! I like to keep it away and I mostly succeed in keeping it away by doing two things: ignorance of others’ spiral and viral negativism & imposing my own positivism upon them through defining my own happiness.

Seeking Balance

We should always balance in life. That’s an old universal transcultural wisdom that reads and sounds nice, but does not really resonate until one actually reaches some degree of life wisdom through actual life experience; the kind of wisdom that keeps reminding us of our” non super-hero’s” status. You and I are complicated beings; sophisticated, if it sounds better and therefore intelligent. We have the innate ability of breaking patterns of thinking, acting and talking in our interaction with others, in pursuit of something new, different or better. And it is not always easy; change is the most difficult process in life, more so to humans than to non-thinking and unemotional entities. By the same token, we are weak and susceptible to intrusive viruses that may harm our sound physical and mental system too. And it’s okay to have this balance of viruses coming in and getting out. It helps our immune system along. It’s okay, as long as we are aware of it. Awareness, herein, is the key.